heteroclites i.e. heteroclitic nouns are nouns having simultaneous membership in two declension classes. In Indo-European languages heteroclites have r stem nom./acc. sg. but are otherwise generally n stem or occasionally r stem + n stem. The word “water” is one such and its appearance in English as an n stem is restricted to OE “yth” = wave from ^undi (cf. Latin “unda” = wave). As an r stem it appears in “otter” = Greek hudros “water snake” and, of course, hydra (“hudra”).
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